The Truth

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It is a great pledge, and the foundation of so much of our society.

The truth, of course, is sometimes a moveable object, as we've seen.

Hey, we've seen it today. Pres. Obama ? apologizing for millions of Americans losing their health insurance because of his health care reform, this after he promised Americans they wouldn't lose their insurance.

And then the vaulted "60 Minutes" forced to retract its "investigation" into the terrorist attack at the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya last year, after their main source was found lying about whether he was actually there. This is a big blow to those who are trying to make some big conspiracy out of the admittedly wrong-headed, mistake-filled security decisions by the U.S. to protect the embassy from terrorists.

None of this, in my humble opinion, helps any of us in society. Not politicians, not citizens, not the media. We are better when we assume people tell the truth, and we are better when people do in fact tell the truth.

It's true in our personal lives, it's true in our professional lives. And the old notion that the truth will out (written by Shakespeare) is as strong now as it was way back then.

We think about this every time our fingers touch the keyboard to write the words that will eventually be read on air, or posted online. And when we make a mistake, it's the worst thing we can do.

That's part of the backdrop living in my head as we prepare tonight's 11 p.m. newscast. We'll have any breaking news of the night, plus Meteorologist Lee Goldberg's weekend AccuWeather forecast, and Rob Powers with the night's sports. I hope you can join Sade Baderinwa and me, tonight at 11, right after 20/20.